109. Col. Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BEIMTINCKasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the facts that Sir George Askwith, in his recent award to the woollen trade operatives, gave an equal war bonus to males and females earning less than 20s. a week, and that the Board of Trade arbitrator awarded the women tramway conductors of Leeds the same war bonus as the men after twelve months' service; and, in view of the fact that the principle of an equal war bonus is thus established for the industrial workers, whether he will now raise the war bonus of the female Civil servants in Great Britain, particularly as he has already given the women teachers in Ireland a bonus similar to that given to the men?
Mr. McKINNON WOODMy attention has not previously been drawn to the facts stated in the first part of the question, but I do not think an analogy can properly be drawn from them with the case of female employés in the Civil Service, whose standard of remuneration, both as regards initial pay and subsequent increases, and conditions of service generally, compare, I believe, favourably with the prevailing rates for similar work elsewhere. The payment of the full war bonus to women teachers in Ireland was agreed to on representations from the Irish Government that their low rates of pay made their position entirely different from that of women Civil servants.
§ Colonel Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCKDoes not the same sort of thing hold good in the case of a very large class of female Civil servants in England?